Islamic Art in Arabic Sources

The book’s title, originally in Arabic, does not carry the connotation in English. This fact in itself evidence to what the book states: the existent distinction between what is called “Islamic Art” in contemporary European, Western and Arabic writings, and what we mean by these terms in ancient Arabic sources, such as “The Art of Embellishment and Beauty”.
The book relies on the deduction that “Islamic Art” explains materials, products and styles without referring, most of the time, to the Arabo-Islamic civilization which gave birth to this art and also defined its terminology and connotations.
Therefore, the book surveys, in some chapters, ancient Arabic sources, and explores “Islamic Art”, through works and crafts societies produced, and through the specific values, meanings and conditions they conferred on some of these works. Henceforth, the book investigates “art” in human works, in general and in particular, while noting that society distinguished some of them, through praise or condemnation, and made of them the objects of rarity, competition and evaluation.
It’s an exploration which enlightens the reader on the condition of guilds, how they were founded and organized and the values that motivated them. Such guilds were highly organized even though they didn’t disclose the “secrets” of their profession.
The book probes into the following rare manuscript: “The Architectural Aspects Craftsmen Need” written by the architect al-Buzdjani (940-997 A.D.). The author, who was the most eminent scholar in Bagdad during the Abbassid period, in the field of astronomy, mathematics, geometry and others, addresses masons and decorates in the manuscript, teaching them, in a simple manner, the accurate scientific ways of drawing and building, using geometrical tools (such as the ruler, the compass, the straight angle…), since they used to work empirically, just relying on their experience and their optical vision. The book is rare and invaluable, for we have not found, up to date, an ancient manuscript that offers us, in a practical manner, any architectural and decorative issues. Studying the book helps the researcher to explore some arabesque patterns exposed in the manuscript, comparing them with similar patterns in ancient Islamic monuments, verifying their historical existence. Analyzing the manuscript therefore enabled the researcher to explore the intricate relationships between geometry (and arithmetic) and art. Such relationships reveal the aspects of a fertile integration among world abstractions, pure geometrical patterns and practical experiments. Art was not only meant to picture transcendental and mental representations but was also inspired by visible artistic patterns.
The book clearly endeavors, in many chapters, to attest the historical aspect of Islamic Art. Through the investigation of a rare and specialized book written by al-Washaa (-937 A.D.), who was a well-known Abbassid embroiderer, the researcher seeks to examine the lifestyle of the “wealthy” of that time, as to how they lived, ate, attired and adorned themselves, corresponded and what they believed in. it is also an opportunity to discover handicrafts and art objects they owned or competed for, in what may be considered a gallery of arts and aesthetic criteria during the Abbassid period. The researcher goes further in his historical scrutiny of available and classified Islamic monuments. He verifies an unexplored aspect which has always been discarded or hastily interrepted, i.e. the absence of “artistic signatures” in ancient works. He succeeds in “dating” a wide range of art objects in different epochs and countries, and of various material mediums of expression, and manages to identify the names of some artists whom history books and translations seldom mentioned.
The present study examines various aspects of artistic products, seeking to attest their historical authenticity which does not only “explain” monumental data (as it is commonly encountered in many books on “Islamic Art”), but it links the artistic product to its use as well as its connotations among groups and individuals. Furthermore, the researcher analyzes the terminology, idiosyncrasies and assessments used by ancient scholars in their interpretation of artifacts. He also attempts to reach an understanding of these scholars’ critical and aesthetic definition they reverted to in their assessment of these various artistic products.
To achieve this purpose, the researcher explores some ancient sources (al-Djahiz, al-Tawhidi, al-Djurdjani…), pinpointing some issues they has studied: nature and art, Beauty’s criteria and conditions, imitation and creativity, the celestial and the earthly, God and craftsman, sight (physical) and insight (mental), as well as other dualities which are inherent to the artistic thought, not to mention the relationship between transcendental and earthly beauty.
After this critical and aesthetic pause, the researcher investigates the writings of Ikhwan as-Safaa (10th century) which laid the foundation of an aesthetic theory that relies on a authors believed that the foundations of Beauty, whether in the universe, the human being or the artifacts, interact according to a “dynamic” composition. It’s an aesthetic and transcendental theory which considers Beauty as accurate as an arithmetic operation, and views calculus (or rather numbers) just as marvelously composed as material beauty.
Consequently, these various approaches of different sources offer a critical and inclusive analysis of Islamic Art’s study structure, functioning and interpretation. It, therefore, invites further investigation of the writings and societies in which such arts flourished, instead of dealing with the products of this art as mere “relics” of the past.